


for reasons wretched and divine

by Splat_Dragon



Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: "Found Family", Alt Prompt 7, Alt. 7, Alt. Prompt 7, Alt.7, Alternate Prompt 7, Angst, Blood and Gore, Day 18, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief, Grieving, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt very little comfort?, Major Spoilers, Spirit Animals, Spoilers, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, burial, seriously, whumptober2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splat_Dragon/pseuds/Splat_Dragon
Summary: Whumptober 2020, alt. #7: Found FamilyCharles never regretted burying Arthur. The man deserved a burial, deserved a headstone, deserved more than to be left to rot.But he’d give anything to be able to close his eyes without seeing Arthur laying on the mountain, without seeing his corpse. To remember Arthur without first seeing him dead on the ground, to remember him living and bright, even if it was angry and cruel, before he’d tried to redeem himself if only because it meant he didn’t first think of him half-rotted on that stone.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945801
Kudos: 36
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	for reasons wretched and divine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art on Tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/702271) by Amesegue Art. 



###  _For reasons wretched and divine_  
~Jackie and Wilson, Hozier

When they’d said goodbye, when Arthur had tried to come with him, when he’d refused to let him, Charles had known he’d never see him again.

He’d been half right.

He’d never seen him alive again.

  
  


And he never regretted burying Arthur. The man deserved a burial, deserved a headstone, deserved more than to be left to rot.

But he’d give anything to be able to close his eyes without seeing Arthur laying on the mountain, without seeing his corpse. To remember Arthur without first seeing him dead on the ground, to remember him first living and bright, even if it was angry and cruel, before he’d tried to redeem himself if only because it meant he didn’t think of him half-rotted on that stone.

  
  


He hadn’t found out that the gang had been scattered for a day or so after the fact.

Rains Fall had, face more solemn than usual (which was saying something) stepped into his tent, a newspaper in hand. Pressed it into his palm without a word, and he’d known before opening it what it would say.

He’d been gone by morning, but it took days to reach Beaver Hollow.

  
  


Though he’d _hated_ Beaver Hollow, seeing the camp decimated hurt. He’d not run with them long - only a year and a half, maybe a bit longer, they’d been his home, been his family, even towards the end. And though most of it had been reduced to ash, he could still determine what most of it had been - there was Dutch’s tent, there, the remains of the campfire, and there, Arthur’s wagon.

Half tangled in Dutch’s tent, Grimshaw’s body, skull picked near-clean by crows that he chased away.

  
  


They had never been particularly close.

She hounded him when he came back bloody from hunting, and more than once had boxed him around the ears when he hadn’t been quick enough to wash clean.

But she’d been like a mother to him, if a poor one. Chased him to his bedroll if he didn’t sleep after taking the night watch duty, shoved ‘dinner’ and ‘breakfast’ into his hands if he didn’t eat. He didn’t remember much of his mother, they’d been separated when he was too young to remember her, but he liked to think she’d be like Miss Grimshaw… if a bit nicer.

So seeing her left to be picked clean by scavengers _hurt._ He took the time to stoop down, cutting the tent and wrapping it around her carefully, mindful of her exposed skull and keeping it together as best he could, her mandible nearly coming loose, before fastening her to Taima’s rump.

She deserved better, but he didn’t _have_ better, so he gave her the best he had.

  
  


The trail wasn’t hard to follow.

Corpses, picked half clean by scavengers, led into the cave. Led to the ladder, and he knew where it led out, so he left the cave and led Taima up to the hole, followed the trail from there - horse carcasses left to rot where their riders had been collected, though he didn’t know why the Pinkertons back at the Hollow had been left behind - until he found Old Boy and Dipper, pain a shearing wound in his chest.

Old Boy had been largely eaten, a gaping wound in his side - a bear, maybe, seeking the nutritious innards - but Dipper had been left to decompose, untouched as though she were something holy, something that would bring sour luck on any who dared touch her, though flesh had begun to slough away from her dark face, baring her gleaming skull, and he took the time to kneel and stroke her mane, hair coming out in chunks caught in his fingers, thanking her and then Old Boy though he hadn’t known the Half-bred half so well.

Up the mountain, and he struggled to keep the trail. Finally found himself clambering up a ledge - then down, and the crunch of breaking bones trickled ice down his spine.

  
  


He saw, first, what was easily the largest coyote he’d ever seen. Black as a starless night, it stood impossibly still aside from its head, jerking from side to side and - 

though Charles was not one who was quick to anger, or to fault an animal for its instincts, he reached for his gun and fired at the coyote.

But it was _quick_ and, as though it had known what he was going to do, danced back with the grace of a deer, paws so light they didn’t seem to touch the ground, stopping to stand in the middle of the ledge and just barely he was aware of its paw resting on a revolver, but couldn’t look away from its muzzle, dangling open and dripping blood.

His eyes met its - dull yellow, like spoiled egg yolks - and he couldn’t look away. It went still, didn’t seem to even breathe, and then the spell was broken as a drop of blood splattered to the ground and he brought his gun up again, firing over its head. With a nonchalance that no wild animal he'd ever met had, it sauntered away, turning the corner and kicking away the revolver as it went.

He stared after it until long after its paw-steps had faded away, jerked as though coming out of a trance and looked over at the form the coyote had loomed over and

  
  


“Oh god, _Arthur,”_

he’d thought he’d never be unable to see his brother, and he’d been right.

One of his eyes was _gone,_ only a bloody socket left in its place, skull bared, long stolen away by a scavenger, a bird or something _precise,_ looking for an easy meal, something soft that wouldn’t require much fuss to get to. His stomach churned and he fought the urge to gag - he’d dealt with many corpses in his time, but never one of a man he’d call brother, and finally he lost control and turned, emptying his stomach, as a fly crawled out of his nose, fluttering down and crawling into his mouth, dangling open as though he’d been gasping for air when he died (or, some part of him hoped, his face had relaxed in death, he’d seen that happen before.)

Blood and… and _other liquids,_ he didn’t know the name for them, wasn’t much of a learned man in such a way, decomposition fluids he supposed they were called, oozed from his nose, from his eyes and mouth and ears, and he had to turn his head to keep from vomiting on Arthur. Though he hated the sight of it, he prayed that the way his nose was at a _wrong_ angle, looked crushed and shattered, was because he was dead and that it hadn’t happened as he died, though from the bruising on his face - at least, he thought it was bruising, but Arthur’s skin sat _odd_ on his face, those frown lines that once lined his mouth now stretched strange down near his cheekbone and jawline, so who knows what it could be - he had a sinking feeling it was due to how he died.

  
  


Charles never did know how he died.

He’d thought Arthur looked beaten in, though he’d been dead long enough that he’d started to look _small,_ skin sliding and falling along his bones, and he’d been sick in the end, losing weight and muscle mass until he’d looked more skeleton than man, so he wasn’t entirely sure.

Hoped, almost, that he’d been shot, that he’d suffered the short death of a well-placed bullet.

But when he’d sat back, unable to look his brother in the face any longer, unable to see that single stony eye staring accusingly back at him, he’d found a mess.

The coyote hadn’t been the first to get there. That, or the coyote had been there for a long time as he was torn open from stem to stern, a mess of torn flesh and bared meat, shredded organs and shattered bone, the flayed remains of his beloved coat, writhing with maggots and _he couldn’t unhear the coyote cracking Arthur’s ribs between its teeth._

He lurched to his feet, put his hands on his knees and gasped for breath, tried desperately to ground himself even as he shook apart. Shucked his jacket - wished he had that tent but he’d have to make do, refused to leave Arthur behind for fear the coyote came back, or any other scavenger for that matter - and lifted him carefully, swallowed convulsively, stomach rebelling at the feel of his loose skin shifting beneath his hands. It wasn’t his first time handling a body, even one long rotted, many rotted even more than this one, but it’s different when it’s your brother.

There was a chunk missing from his leg - the coyote, he thought, it fit for its size, and maggots poured from it as he scooped him up, cradling him like a bride, holding his breath against the scent of _rot_ and _sick,_ turning and beginning to walk up the cliff.

  
  


He wanted, more than anything, to bury him near the Overlook.

Arthur had been happiest there, he knew. When the gang had been happy, before it had all fallen apart. When they were all alive, before Dutch had well and truly lost his mind. Where Micah had been gone - first in jail, then hiding while he made reparations.

But he feared trying to bring him down the mountain, wasn’t sure he could hold together for even that small trip, much less on the back of a horse that far of a ride, and he didn’t have enough room on Taima if he managed to either way.

So he went up the mountain, cradling Arthur as though he were something precious - which he was - mindful of the open wound in his leg, of the hole in his stomach, painfully aware of the eye staring into him. Looked and looked, determined to find somewhere to bury him - he deserved, at least, that much. Remembered overhearing him talking to Lenny and Tilly and Hosea once, a long time ago—

_“Face me to the west, so I can… watch the settin’ sun an’... remember all the fine times we had that way.”_

—and Arthur, when he found him, had been facing east, and so Charles was determined to bury him facing west if it was the last thing he did.

  
  


He looked up, frowning as he carefully stepped down a small ledge, and the coyote was staring back at him.

If his arms weren’t full, he would have shot the damn thing for the mess it had made of his brother.

It huffed, tilted its head, licked its lips, and trotted away.

  
  


Behind where it stood was the perfect spot.

An outcropping, not too far out but long enough for a man of Arthur’s size, a massive rock at the end like some natural headstone. The grass thick and lush, cradling Arthur when he set him down and knelt to feel the dirt, finding it loose enough to be dug with a tool but hard packed enough that an animal would have to work their paws bloody.

It was perfect, almost too perfect, and he looked back, frowning when he didn’t see the coyote anywhere. Felt a chill run down his spine, shook it off.

He moved Arthur so he could keep an eye on him, ready to chase off any birds that might be attracted, not trusting the coyote - clearly brazen, used to humans - not to try its luck.

Charles carried a trowel in his satchel, having found it useful for a great many things, so he pulled it out and set to work.

  
  


Hours passed. By the time he was done his clothes were sticking to him with sweat and he was shaking, muscles throbbing and near to giving out. But he had a grave, ten feet deep just to be safe, and so he wiped off the trowel and set it aside, picking up Arthur as carefully as he could with hands that shook with more than just exhaustion, said a prayer and set him down in the grave, making sure to face him west before clambering out of the hole, collapsing onto his side and gasping for breath.

He didn’t dare to rest though, knew that just a hole wouldn’t deter any scavengers, and set about filling the grave. Hated to cover his brother with dirt, wished he could give him the dignity of a coffin but had no way of getting one, so could only offer an apology as the dirt scattered over the side of Arthur’s face.

He doesn’t remember much of burying him. Pouring the dirt back in took hours, he had only his hands and a trowel and he’d dug it deep, but finally he could collapse onto his side after patting it harshly, making sure it was packed down until, aside from the lack of grass and plants, it looked barely different from the rest of the ledge, barely disturbed.

  
  


He dozed on and off for the rest of the day, waking as the rising sun cast its light into his eyes. Reached up and wiped his face, was jerked back down to reality when he found himself with a streak of dirt across his face—

—looked up, and found himself staring down the coyote again. It shifted from paw to paw, looked back over its shoulder, and his only warning was the faintest, far-away clattering of hooves before the most golden stag he’d ever seen strode up to stand beside the coyote as though the coyote wouldn’t eat it if given a heartbeat’s chance, peering down at him critically, before turning right back around and walking away, gone as quick as it had come.

The coyote looked down at him for a moment longer, then turned and trotted after the stag.

  
  


He shivered, and stood, grabbing his satchel - he’d intended on eating and having a drink, but he wanted to get started on Arthur’s grave marker, could always eat as he worked.

  
  


Arthur’s grave marker took him five days. Finding the wood took the better part of the first, breaking down the trees took the second. And then was the matter of carving it, of working the wood into a circle, of making it take the shape he could see in his mind’s eye, of making all the separate pieces come together and, more importantly, stay together.

He intended on taking as long as he needed to make the grave marker. Every time he closed his eyes he saw it, saw it look a certain way, and though he didn’t know _why_ he knew it needed to look as such.

And on the fifth day, every one woken to find the deer and coyote peering down at him, he had the marker, and all he needed to do - though it was no easy undertaking - was engrave it. He was no religious man, but he knew some sermons, knew some verses as any man of his time would, had spent most of his time carving trying to decide, trying to picture them carved into the wood until it fell to rot, and finally he planted the grave marker carefully and stepped back to look it over a final time,

  
  
  


His knees went weak, and he sank to the ground.

The culmination of a week - two days ride, five days taken to bury and make his grave marker, a break taken only to bury Miss Grimshaw - stood before him. He felt… oddly empty, until a tear trickled down his face, and then another, and another, and he’d never been one to cry and his face didn’t twist and he didn’t sob but he couldn’t stop.

Something soft nudged against his face, a warm puff of breath, and he caught a glimpse of golden fur before he was nearly knocked over with the force of the stag’s shove.

Despite himself, he grinned - it was watery, and shaky, and tasted of salt as tears ran over his mouth, but the stag sighed into his face, smelling of sweet-grass and smoke and horse-sweat and _familiar_ and he reached up, tangling his fingers in the thick fur of its neck, bringing their heads together.

  
  


**ARTHUR MORGAN**

**BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS**


End file.
